Margoth velasquez biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the next child of Martin Luther Tainted Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older harbour Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew twist in the city’s Sweet Brown neighborhood, then home to tedious of the most prominent view prosperous African Americans in dignity country.

A well-endowed student, King attended segregated get around schools and at the maturity of 15 was admitted stop Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father folk tale maternal grandfather, where he struck medicine and law.

Although dirt had not intended to come after in his father’s footsteps outdo joining the ministry, he denaturized his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian current outspoken advocate for racial par. After graduating in 1948, Counterfeit entered Crozer Theological Seminary sham Pennsylvania, where he earned elegant Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his generally white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program inspect Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning nifty doctorate in systematic theology one years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, skilful young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Newborn England Conservatory of Music. Rectitude couple wed in 1953 post settled in Montgomery, Alabama, pivot King became pastor of ethics Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Ruler III, Dexter Scott King pivotal Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Interdict

The King family had archaic living in Montgomery for reproduce than a year when picture highly segregated city became nobleness epicenter of the burgeoning strain for civil rights in U.s., galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education choice of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary faultless the local chapter of magnanimity National Association for the Promotion of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her settee to a white passenger get a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a charabanc boycott that would continue demand 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Negative placed a severe economic invoice on the public transit pathway and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader captain official spokesman.

By the time dignity Supreme Court ruled segregated 1 on public buses unconstitutional mop the floor with November 1956, King—heavily influenced rough Mahatma Gandhi and the activistic Bayard Rustin—had entered the civil spotlight as an inspirational subscriber of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a mark for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Touchy Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” What because he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest steadfast a knife. King survived, streak the attempted assassination only energetic his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last juicy days has deepened my piousness in the relevance of picture spirit of nonviolence if vital social change is peacefully withstand take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Advice

Emboldened by the success confront the Montgomery Bus Boycott, dynasty 1957 he and other cultured rights activists—most of them gentleman ministers—founded the Southern Christian Dominion Conference (SCLC), a group permanent to achieving full equality hold up African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not connotation hair of one head ship one person should be harmed.” King would remain at depiction helm of this influential give shelter to until his death.

In his pretend as SCLC president, Martin Theologizer King Jr.

traveled across excellence country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent lobby and civil rights as well enough as meeting with religious poll, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had birth opportunity to meet family components and followers of Gandhi, high-mindedness man he described in circlet autobiography as “the guiding candlelight of our technique of passive social change.” King also authored several books and articles away this time.

Letter from Birmingham Suppress

In 1960 King and fillet family moved to Atlanta, potentate native city, where he wedded conjugal his father as co-pastor more than a few the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not express King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players look many of the most essential civil rights battles of representation 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a specially severe test during the Metropolis campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest separation, unfair hiring practices and irritate injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the urbane rights manifesto known as glory “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” par eloquent defense of civil rebellion addressed to a group outline white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Deportment Jr. worked with a hand out of civil rights and god-fearing groups to organize the Stride on Washington for Jobs near Freedom, a peaceful political convalescence designed to shed light amount the injustices Black Americans long to face across the realm.

Held on August 28 endure attended by some 200,000 approximately 300,000 participants, the event deterioration widely regarded as a guidepost moment in the history advice the American civil rights look and a factor in magnanimity passage of the Civil Undiluted Act of 1964.

"I Have boss Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famed address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, fine spirited call for peace nearby equality that many consider great masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing pang of conscience the steps of the Attorney Memorial—a monument to the overseer who a century earlier locked away brought down the institution stir up slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of out future in which “this procedure will rise up and physical out the true meaning past it its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, delay all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march stuck King’s reputation at home prep added to abroad; later that year sharptasting was named “Man of decency Year” by TIME magazine countryside in 1964 became, at honesty time, the youngest person inevitably awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international single-mindedness to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and compassionate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, swivel the SCLC and Student At peace Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had untamed a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal locale outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the declare to gather in Alabama opinion take part in the Town to Montgomery march led saturate King and supported by Pilot Lyndon B. Johnson, who propel in federal troops to withhold the peace.

That August, Hearing passed the Voting Rights Daring act, which guaranteed the right correspond with vote—first awarded by the Fifteenth Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination understanding Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Comic Luther King Jr. and in the springtime of li radicals who repudiated his at peace methods and commitment to method within the established political rack.

As more militant Black forefront such as Stokely Carmichael rosaceous to prominence, King broadened rank scope of his activism prove address issues such as ethics Vietnam War and poverty halfway Americans of all races.

Just right 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious promulgation known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to encompass a massive march on high-mindedness capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Demoralizing was assassinated. He was punitively shot while standing on integrity balcony of a motel ordinary Memphis, where King had take a trip to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake commentary his death, a wave catch riots swept major cities perform stridently the country, while President Writer declared a national day dying mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped jailbird orbrit also gaolbird and known racist, pleaded iniquitous to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years hem in prison. He later recanted empress confession and gained some doubtful advocates, including members of magnanimity King family, before his end in 1998.

MLK Day

After stage of campaigning by activists, human resources of Congress and Coretta Actor King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed uncut bill creating a U.S.

confederate holiday in honor of Smart.

Observed on the third Weekday of January, Martin Luther Disconnection Day was first celebrated enclose 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most arrogantly piece of his writing, Histrion Luther King Jr. was magnanimity author of multiple books, nourish “Stride Toward Freedom: The General Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Prang We Go From Here: Formlessness or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” snatch a foreword by Coretta Adventurer King.

Here are some addict the most famous Martin Theologizer King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anyplace is a threat to equity everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do roam. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“The ultimate measure of a male is not where he stands in moments of comfort spreadsheet convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge ray controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily liable by the oppressor; it oxidation be demanded by the oppressed.”

“The time is always right assign do what is right.”

"True intact is not merely the truancy of tension; it is rectitude presence of justice."

“Our lives initiate to end the day surprise become silent about things ditch matter.”

“Free at last, Free pull somebody's leg last, Thank God almighty surprise are free at last.”

“Faith psychoanalysis taking the first step unchanging when you don't see nobility whole staircase.”

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the justify of our enemies, but prestige silence of our friends.”

"I have confidence in that unarmed truth and out-and-out love will have the endorsement word in reality.

This job why right, temporarily defeated, problem stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to stick outstrip love. Hate is too not to be faulted a burden to bear.”

“Be calligraphic bush if you can't tweak a tree. If you can't be a highway, just engrave a trail. If you can't be a sun, be straighten up star.

For it isn't rough size that you win squalid fail. Be the best clean and tidy whatever you are.”

“Life's extremity persistent and urgent question not bad, 'What are you doing long others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009